Why The Red Cross and WellnessFX Should Develop A Partnership.

A few years ago I started donating blood via the Red Cross, now I get regular phone calls asking me if I’ll donate blood – and I’m happy to do so. Yesterday I traveled to the local Sheraton and made one of those donations and as I was having my blood drawn a thought occurred to me – the partnering of the Red Cross and WellnessFX could be hugely beneficial to both parties (and to those who donate).

Now, I don’t represent either of these organizations, but I figured perhaps if I post my thoughts here someone from those organizations would chance upon them and pursue the idea further…or perhaps someone will point out why this idea would never work…

In any case, this is what I’m thinking:

When someone gives blood via the Red Cross they would have the option to allow their blood to be processed by WellnessFX (e.g. the annual checkup level). This would be ‘free’ and would provide folks with an additional reason to donate blood while also vastly expanding WellnessFX’s name recognition and customer base.[1]/li>

I know that the Red Cross performs communicable disease checks on the blood, but I’m guessing they may also perform many of the standard tests WellnessFX offers also – this means that with a signed disclaimer this info. could be shared and uploaded into WellnessFX for the donor to view without WellnessFX having to perform all of the tests themselves (thus reducing cost).

From the reverse perspective, when having blood drawn at a lab one could have an option to have a donation taken that would be given to the Red Cross. This would increase the number of donors for the Red Cross and reduce lines at blood drives – as folks could give whenever they wanted rather than everyone trying to cram in on a single day.

This could additionally reduce expenses for the Red Cross, as eventually there might not even be a need for blood drives, or at least a greatly reduced need, if folks began using labs to draw the blood (and meanwhile, the labs could get a tax write-off for a few extra minutes work).

Finally, this could be a significant step towards improving the general population’s health in the United States. A significant portion of the US population doesn’t get annual physical checkups and I imagine a significant portion of these individuals do give blood. In this manner they could get information about their health at no-cost up to several times per year (e.g. each time they donated blood). This would allow for earlier detection of numerous health conditions (e.g. low iron, high cholesterol, etc.) and potentially save lives and reduce emergency financial costs.